Katherine Balch

Illuminate is a joyful outpouring of sound set in motion by an assemblage of texts by Sharon Olds, Adrienne Rich, Alejandra Pizarnik, and Anne Carson’s Sappho translations in dialogue with selections from Rimbaud’s Les Illuminations. I wanted to treat this iconically musical and beloved text from my own frame of experience: namely, Rimbaud’s abundant references to the perspectives of women and children throughout this collection. I placed these excerpted texts in conversation with four of my favorite female poets in a narrative cycle of the seasons, beginning and ending with spring. Illuminate treats the solo voices as members of the orchestra, instrumentalists as well as conveyors of semantic meaning. Audibility of the text is never the goal. However, my experience and understanding of these texts drive the musical materials and flow of this piece. 

– Katherine Balch